Canandaigua bank gives $25,000 to RIT’s Venture Creations

Donation will support RIT’s business incubator

Canandaigua National Bank & Trust is giving Rochester Institute of Technology’s Venture Creations $25,000 to support the business incubator and its programs.

“Venture Creations is exceptionally impressive on a number of levels,” says Steve Martin, senior vice president of the Canandaigua Bank. “The organization and leadership is what clearly sets it apart.”

The gift will be paid through 2017.

Venture Creations Director Bill Jones welcomed the donation that will be used to help support special events and projects in the business incubator.

“We’re very appreciative of this gift by Canandaigua National Bank and are pleased to have community partners take notice of the potential of these promising new businesses,” Jones said.

“We see it as a community investment and as an opportunity for the area to grow,” Martin says. “We will all tend to benefit as a community when new businesses do well, whether they employ people or contribute to the economic community in Greater Rochester and the Finger Lakes region.”

Venture Creations is located on Tech Park, off John Street, which borders the east side of the RIT’s Henrietta campus. Since opening in 2003, it has housed 35 companies, created 164 jobs and brought in more than $25.7 million in private capital raised.